Bigway Skills camp

[LouDiamond 1]

The final 2 days were just as much fun as the first two. People continued to show up and a few had to leave but the jumping never stopped. We rocked it out of the skyvan and did every exit imaginable. Some were a bit skeptical about diving out and about gainers but after doing it, all agreed it made for some very fast formation builds. It got to the point where we could gainer or dive out and build in about the same time. As the day went on peoples confidence had risen and the build times got even quicker.

We knocked out another crosswind individual distance jump. I haven't downloaded my GPS data yet but according to Brian we all covered about 4 miles which isn't shabby as some had never covered more than 2 miles before.

A few people got to fly base for the first time and also how to fly dual bases in a formation as well as building vertical formations on differing levels.

For many, it was a good way to learn the way their suits fly best and dial in their flying skills so they could stay relative to others no matter the speed of the flock.

As was mentioned, Nick lost his camera helmet. His Nikon and vid camera were toast but the Fisheye may be OK.

Overall, it was a lot of fun and I want to thank everyone who participated in the camp. I hope everyone had a good time and that Ash and I pushed everyone enough outside their individual comfort zones to force an improvement. More importantly, I hope everyone learned some valuable safety skills for flying in flocks and the planning considerations one has to think about before you get on the plane. You guys did a great job and Ash and I could see the improvement everyone had made by the final day.

I had a great time and I look forward to seeing and flying with everyone again in the future.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[bdrake529 0]

The 4 mile figure came from using the measuring tool in Google Earth. I measured the distance from a bit South of the 10 back to the DZ. I didn't have a GPS record of the jump.

Scott, if you get a usable GPS log for that jump, please let us know how far we actually flew.

By any account, it was a long way back.

Brian Drake

[ScottGray 0]

Scott:

The camp was great. Really boosted my skills by leaps and bounds. Very well run and paced for the group, I think all of us were streched and learned many new things.

Both you and Ash made us feel right at home and made us much better flyers with ability to translate these skills to others.

GREAT EVENT !!! WELL DONE !!!

Really enjoyed jumping with all you guys: John, Nick, Tony, Sam, Craig, Jose, Scott, Monkey (Base Brother), Ed, Brain, Eike, Mark, Scott C., and Ash.

Fantastic dives guys !!!

Look me or Chris Gray up if you are out on the East Coast.

Fly fast, fall slow ......

WSI-5 / PFI-51 / EGI-112 / S-Fly
The Brothers Gray Wing Suit Academy
Contact us for first flight and basic flocking courses at your DZ or boogie.
www.thebrothersgray.com

[NSEMN8R 0]

Flock Yeah! I had a great time flying with you guys. Thanks again for a great weekend! I got some good experience and met some really cool people.

I'm glad that zipper thing worked out. I would have been screwed.. I don't think I would have been able to get the Mach 1 back from Jose. He made some huge progress in it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone improve that much over one weekend. I think almost all of us improved some though. The flocks seemed way tighter at the end of the camp than they were at the beginning.

A couple of us also got to do some wingsuit balloon jumps too. Even though it was a solo, that was one of my favorite wingsuit jumps ever.

All in all, it was a great weekend. If you guys do it again next year, I'll definitely be back.

[cfalon 0]

I can't express how excellent this Wingsuit Camp was! Extremely informative, educational, safe, and above all a great time! It's not often that many of us wingsuiters get to fly with a dozen or more birds at a time PLUS get to do numerous wild and crazy exits from a tailgate aircraft. If ever another camp of this ilk happens, I highly, highly recommend taking advantage of it. I learned more than I ever expected.

Many thanks to Scott and Ash who tirelessly put in the time to teach some of us fledglings even when the temperature consistently hovered over 100 degrees.

Lastly, I just gotta talk about the coolest thing I've ever seen while wingsuiting that happened at this camp. I was about 500 to 700 feet above the flock and slowly dropping down to form up when off to my right Ash comes literally tearing ass out of the sky, unbelievably fast and resembling a stooping falcon. And just when I thought he was going to totally annihilate the entire flock, he just stopped on a dime and gently flew off with the flock. It was extremely impressive and a thing to behold. It was inspiring to fly with such wingsuiting talent as Ash and Scott exhibit.

[QuietStorm 0]

Update from the "Hawks" of the Eloy desert! Nuclear Nick continues salvage work on his camera helmet. The card out of his Nikon D200 was saved....Ash has the pics. The tape out of the PC100 is intact but the cassette is smashed......currently we are working on trying to get the tape into a new "plastic cassette"holder so we can play the tape back and see what terminal impact looks like from a lost camera helmet.

[ScottGray 0]

FYI - My video clips are posted to www.skydivingmovies.com now, under the wing suit category.

You can also find it at www.myspace.com/thebrothersgray

I have not done any fancy editing. Brain said something about crafting a more expansive video including video from both Ash and Scott C.

P.S. - Both myself and my brother are considering going to Skyfest.

WSI-5 / PFI-51 / EGI-112 / S-Fly
The Brothers Gray Wing Suit Academy
Contact us for first flight and basic flocking courses at your DZ or boogie.
www.thebrothersgray.com

[LouDiamond 1]

Nice montage of footage. The gainer shot is choice. As soon as I get a moment I will jam out an article and submit it along with pics to the mags.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[PhoenixRising 0]

Flock U is also considering going to summerfest

Wingsuit organizing, first flight courses and coaching
Flock University
Tonysuits

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Flock U is also considering going to summerfest

Very cool,Summerfest is going to be epic this year. Hope to see everyone there.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[monkycndo 0]

Nice job there base buddy. That last jump we made was sweet. Awesome exit.

You just might want to let the person flying base know that you were planning on docking. It scared a few people.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[ScottGray 0]

No need to be afeared .... just a friendly grimlin brushing the leg.

Hope to see you at Skyfest or Fock N Dock 3.5

WSI-5 / PFI-51 / EGI-112 / S-Fly
The Brothers Gray Wing Suit Academy
Contact us for first flight and basic flocking courses at your DZ or boogie.
www.thebrothersgray.com

[bdrake529 0]

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=5773

Here's my "remix" of the various footage and photos I received from the camp.

Enjoy,

Brian

Brian Drake

[LouDiamond 1]

Doesn't seem to be working,I get an error when I try to open it or run it from the site.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[bdrake529 0]

Whoops. I'll try a different format and post when it's up.

Brian

Brian Drake

[The111 1]

Quote

Whoops. I'll try a different format and post when it's up.

Brian

It worked fine for me, Brian. I viewed it with VLC. Didn't try Quicktime.

Nice job!
EDIT: Just tried it in Quicktime, it worked fine but after I shut it off the song is still playing, and I can't even find a running Quicktime process!

The gainer exit was a very neat perspective.

Scott, what the hell helmet are you wearing? I don't recognize it, looks sort of like an Optik but different. Impressive though that you managed to fit the 5D and HC5 side by side.

And who was in the black that slid under the flock and fired off a flash? Never really seen anybody use a flash with WS... will eventually add one to my setup.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[bdrake529 0]

That's Ash with the flash (hey...that rhymes)

Brian Drake

[bdrake529 0]

I re-compressed the file as an mpeg-4 which should still open in Quicktime or iTunes (or VLC). If clicking the download link doesn't work, try right-clicking and saving the link directly to your hard drive before opening it.

Brian Drake

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

The soundtrack made me feel like I was watching a Superman movie! That's good stuff.

To Matt: Chris had the helmet Scott is using on display at PIA. It's intended for exactly that kind of application.

[cfalon 0]

I saved the file to disk and then associated it with Windows Media Player and it runs perfect.

Excellent work Brian, I think the music works really well with the video and stills alike, particularly that last little faux pas of a dive bomb at the end, nice timing.

[IslandGuy 0]

Excellent Brian - thanks for putting that together and posting. Wish I were there flying with you guy - hopefully next time.

Play like your life depends on it.

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Scott, what the hell helmet are you wearing?

It's a Prototype helmet. It's not the same one Chris had at PIA but rather a combination of mine and Chris's ideas built around the Optik illusion. The idea was to create a helmet that has realestate up top but isn't another FTP. It's unofficially and jokingly being called the CAM(pos)-RAK. It's a great helmet but Chris and I are still tweaking a few things.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[LouDiamond 1]

It downloaded with a mp4.txt extension for some reason but after removing the .txt extension it played fine. Very well done Brian. I only wish I had my other DV tape handy when we were down loading the footage to your mac so you could of had more to work with. Great job and I like the music selection
PS: I still need to download my GPS tracks to see what I did or didn't get from those jumps.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[bdrake529 0]

Scott,

I finally got the GPS repeater installed in my DZ's Twin Otter and it works exactly as I hoped. Perfect signal from everywhere in the plane I've tried so far. So my little Garmin Foretrex is finally earning its keep since I no longer have to worry about maintaining a signal and can use it on every jump.

I'm still very interested in the results of the WinTec unit. If it's as robust as hoped, I may pick one up for when I'm at other DZs since I won't have the repeater helping me out there.

Brian Drake

[LouDiamond 1]

Very cool. Can you post some pictures of how you mounted it in the Aircraft?

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING